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Contest Details

THIS CONTEST DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO OCTOBER 1ST

We're challenging you to see what you fit on a 1x1 inch square PCB that's both useful and and awesome. Get creative with both how it works and how it looks. Embrace the constraints to make something you'd otherwise never even imagine.

Awards And Prizes

Grand Prize :: $500

Tindie gift certificates will be awarded for:

Best Project - $100

Best Artistic PCB Design - $100

Best Documentation - $100

Best Social Media Picture or Video - $100

You can post a picture or video of your PCB, of you working on your PCB, or anything related on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, or any other social platform. You must post a link to the video in the comments on this page.

How To Enter

Build a functioning 1x1 inch/ 2.54 x 2.54 cm (or smaller) PCB and document it as a new project on Hackaday.io. Yes it MUST BE a project that has not been entered into the previous version of this contest. Once you have published your project, look in the right sidebar for the "Submit project to..." menu in order to enter it in the 'The Return of the Square Inch Project':

Entries must consist of:

An EDA design for a printed circuit board, including a schematic, PCB design files, and generated gerber files. (Gerber files must be sufficient to create a copy of the board. This includes Excellon drill files.)

A bill of materials in the components section of your project page.

Information about the purpose and usage of the project.

Images of an assembled version of the project.

Stuff that we let you decide about:

PCBs may have any amount of layers.

Jumper wires and component connections in the air are allowed.

Components choices are not restricted; components may be overhanging but all components must originate within the square inch boundary.

The following restraints are placed:

The total printed circuit boards required for a single copy of an entry must fit completely within a 1 inch by 1 inch square. (It may also be smaller.)

Should such a copy of an entry require multiple separate circuit boards, they must be panelized by the entrant to fit within the aforementioned dimensions.

Hi Eric, I have been thinking about cpu's and minimal cpu's for at least 14 years (not continuous though). Calculating without ALU was examined in my NeuronZoo project. The contest was the trigger to let it all materialize...

With SAMI - Smart Motor Driver you can move 1 exact meter in a practically perfect straight line at exactly 80 RPM with just 10 lines of code. Connect everything in a couple of minutes and you can have up to 128 motors in the same I2C bus. Here is SAMI in action:

Seems more like "a few" than "a lot" too me... One guy obviously misunderstood the "must fit into 1x1" square" requirement. 60x10mm is < 1" but doesn't fit into a 1x1" square. I contacted him, so maybe he could adapt his board to meet requirements?! It seems other projects have just been submitted without reading the requirements...

My blinker design is 60x10mm which is well under 1sq. inch.. limiting the design to 1inch max side size beats me.. are we looking for sqare pcbs of 1x1inch? in the day of pcbs taking all kinds of shapes i thought it was sq. inch that counted, not size length.. also, the only reason for this specific design to be 60mm long is to fit an AA battery holder on the bottom side. if i make it without the battery holder it is far smaller but then its a loose pcb that needs a battery holder to operate .. plus it will not be practical .. anyway.. if its not acceptable, i would like to withdraw it as i might not even have the pcbs by contests end time.. same for my Tiny Thief project. PS i got no communications from anybody about this issue...